


Follow a Star

by daredevilmoon



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Edwardian pop culture, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-02
Updated: 2014-03-02
Packaged: 2018-01-14 08:17:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 711
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1259341
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/daredevilmoon/pseuds/daredevilmoon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ethel has her dreams.  </p><p> <i>So it had become a habit of Ethel’s to catalogue every hard-luck story which had a happy ending.</i></p>
            </blockquote>





	Follow a Star

**Author's Note:**

> I was reading a _Photoplay_ and saw the advert mentioned, so I decided to to write a quick ode to lost dreams.

It had been her mother who’d started the interest in her.

Her earliest memories were of her mother leaning over her in the dusky light of her bedroom, dark eyes glowing bright, telling her tales which would be forever fused into her thoughts. Ethel had never heard of Cinderella; instead, her mother would tell her the tale of a Miss Belle Bilton.

"After we were married, we went to London and we saw her on the stage, singing the silliest song you ever did hear. Oh, but she were right pretty. Like you, my duckie; right pretty. Then one day, a handsome lord sat, right where we’d sat!, and fell in love with her. And they had an awful hard time, but soon enough they were married and happy. And Miss Belle Bilton’s a countess now. Imagine a thing like that!"

So it had become a habit of Ethel’s to catalogue every hard-luck story which had a happy ending. She’d always liked Mabel Normand’s pictures - she was so much funnier than Chaplin and saucier than anything. She knew her mother would have liked Mabel and when she’d read her story, well! She imagined recounting the story to her mother, as her mother had done for her those years ago.

 

On her half-days, those during which she didn’t go to the pictures, she’d sit in her room for the long hours and sneak the use of the curling iron Anna practised with. The first time, there’d been a terrible smell and she’d burnt a part of her hair. She told Anna that she had just leaned over a candle and Anna looked at her like she were stupid, but didn’t even doubt that it had happened.

After a few tries, Ethel had perfected sausage curls which hung against her breast so prettily that she couldn’t help but pose in front of the mirror like a bathing girl.

When she finally saw the advertisement, she very nearly deafened the servants’ hall with her squeal. She almost didn’t want to tell, but it was hardly likely that Anna or Daisy would best her. The contest lasted for a month and if a producer liked the way she looked, she may well make it into pictures! William had been the one to point out that the contest was only for Americans and Canadians.

In her bed that night, long after Anna had fallen to sleep, Ethel stared at the ceiling. It was hardly fair that they should have contests that didn’t count for all of the places the magazine went. Then, against the dark, she imagined her mother leaning over her as she used to, awash in excitement.

"Stranger things happen at sea, duck."

So she’d gone and had her photograph done in town, looking very smart with her new hat and perfect curls. She already had her letter with her, and slipped the photograph into an envelope with along with that for the post.

She’d hardly succeed if she never tried, would she?

Ever since she’d seen her first picture, she’d practised her faces. Her mother used to watch, enraptured, and gasp aloud or applaud whenever she was particularly riveting. For her part, Ethel especially liked the Biograph Girl and would re-enact her pictures for weeks. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence for her to swoon to the kitchen floor, while her mother pretended to weep into her handkerchief as she made dinner.

And Ethel knew she was pretty; ever since she’d been a slip of a thing, boys would touch her cheek or her hair and tell her things like that. Nothing about her could hold her back in pictures; no one could ever hear the sound of her voice and know her father had been a miner.

So she waited for the response which seemed to never come. She never received letters, least of all from important Hollywood men.

Yet, night upon night after she’d posted her letter, her mother would appear before her with a smile.

"They’re awfully busy out there. And they’ve got to find something good enough for you, haven’t they? You’re so pretty they can hardly have you playing a telephone operator! They’d be had for lying to the public. Don’t worry, duckie. You’ll make yourself into something grand."


End file.
